Probe Puts Buffer On Council Wars

February 19, 1986|By John Camper and James Strong.

The City Hall payoff scandal has resulted in an unexpected lull in the 2 1/2-year verbal and political conflict between the Chicago City Council`s 29- member majority bloc and the 21 members loyal to Mayor Harold Washington.

Majority bloc aldermen, who had been quick to exploit any administration weakness, have been uncharacteristically quiet since the first reports of the payoff inquiry hit the newspapers Christmas Day.

The majority bloc`s leader, Ald. Edward Vrdolyak (10th), has barely peeped. The powerful Finance Committee chairman, Ald. Edward Burke (14th), will talk about the case when asked, but he has forgone the usual press conferences and fiery council floor speeches.

``They`re doing such a good job of screwing up. Why should we compound it?`` Burke asked rhetorically. Any political grandstanding would be sure to provoke angry newspaper editorials, he added.

A political strategist loyal to the mayor agreed that the majority bloc`s code of silence was smart politics, but for different reasons.

``Sooner or later, something will turn up against some of them,`` he said. ``There will be things that will be embarrassing to them and their words would come back to haunt them.``

There have been a few unofficial violations of the cease-fire.

On Jan. 30, Ald. Gerald McLaughlin (45th), a majority bloc member, introduced a resolution calling for a special council committee to investigate the central charges in the payoff investigation: that 8 to 10 local officials received money from an FBI informant posing as a corrupt businessman seeking city contracts and that top aides to the mayor failed to report that a high administration official received money.

McLaughlin`s resolution landed with a thud and remains buried in the council`s Rules Committee, which is controlled by the majority bloc.

``I was acting alone on the resolution,`` McLaughlin said. ``I personally thought it was something that needed to be done.``

But the ``general view`` among the 29, McLaughlin said, ``is if we do nothing, the mayor might ultimately bury himself.``

Still, some of the mayor`s opponents have been unable to resist covert efforts to worsen the mayor`s predicament by spreading rumors of wrongdoing in the form of tips to news reporters.

Two weeks ago, two news organizations received a photocopy of a $1,500 money order made out to the mayor`s main campaign fund by Michael Burnett, the name used by Michael Raymond, the FBI informant. The photocopy came from one of the mayor`s political opponents, who said he received it in the mail and had no proof of its validity.

The mayor`s aides later confirmed that the money order was in fact a campaign contribution from Raymond.

Burke acknowledged telling reporters last week that he had heard that former mayoral aide Thomas Coffey had written a memo contradicting other top administration officials, Corporation Counsel James Montgomery and chief of staff Ernest Barefield, on a central aspect of the payoff investigation.

Barefield and Montgomery have said that they knew last August that deputy revenue director John Adams had received money but that they did not realize it came from Systematic Recovery Service Inc., the New York collections firm represented by Raymond. Adams later was fired after being accused by the Washington administration of taking a bribe.

Coffey hotly denied writing such a memo, and no copy of it has surfaced.

Burke said later that he had heard about the memo from Ald. Eugene Sawyer (6th), the brother of Charles Sawyer, who has been suspended as city revenue director and who reportedly has contradicted the account of Montgomery and Barefield.

Eugene Sawyer said he had ``heard about`` the memo but had not seen it and did not recall the source of the rumor.

Majority-minority hostilities could resume next Wednesday when the mayor seeks council action on an ordinance to expand the powers of former U.S. Atty. Thomas Sullivan, whom he hired last week to assist in an internal inquiry by the city`s Office of Municipal Investigations. The mayor wants the council to give Sullivan the power to subpoena witnesses and documents and to investigate aldermen and private citizens.

The council has the right to issue subpoenas, though there is some dispute whether it may subpoena private citizens. In any event, some majority bloc members are vowing to give Sullivan a grilling before they approve any additional powers.

``There`s no way we are going to hand him any blank check,`` one powerful member of the majority bloc warned. ``We are going to ask some hard questions.``

But remarks from Burke were more conciliatory. He hedged on whether he would demand that Sullivan appear before the council or his Finance Committee but quickly added, ``I would imagine that he would like to make his views known.``

Meanwhile, Raymond`s sentencing on weapons charges stemming from his arrest in Nashville is expected to be delayed for several weeks. Joe Brown, the U.S. attorney in Nashville, said Tuesday that he expects a federal judge to grant a request for a continuance. Raymond was to be sentenced Thursday.

Raymond was charged with possession of a machine gun and a handgun when the FBI arrested him in July, 1984, just blocks from the home of a wealthy Nashville businessmen whom Raymond allegedly was preparing to rob. The 18-month investigation into corruption in Chicago began when Raymond told agents of his efforts to bribe governmental officials in a move to obtain a lenient sentence in the Nashville case.